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This book examines how nations and other key participants in the global community address problems requiring collective action. The global community has achieved some successes, such as eradicating smallpox, but other efforts to coordinate nations' actions, such as the reduction of drug trafficking, have not been sufficient. This book identifies the factors that promote or inhibit successful collective action at the regional and global level for an ever-growing set of challenges stemming from augmented cross-border flows associated with globalization. Modern principles of collective action are identified and applied to a host of global challenges, including promoting global health, providing foreign assistance, controlling rogue nations, limiting transnational terrorism, and intervening in civil wars. Because many of these concerns involve strategic interactions where choices and consequences are dependent on one's own and others' actions, the book relies, in places, on elementary game theory that is fully introduced for the uninitiated reader.

Informal Workers and Collective Action features nine cases of collective action to improve the status and working conditions of informal workers. Cases from a diverse set of countries—Brazil, Cambodia, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Georgia, Liberia, South Africa, Tunisia, and Uruguay—focus on two broad types of informal workers.

Abstract What do climate change, global financial crises, pandemics, and fragility and conflict have in common? They are all examples of global risks that can cross geographical and generational boundaries and whose mismanagement can reverse gains in development and jeopardize the well-being of generations. Managing risks such as these becomes a global public good, whose benefits also cross boundaries, providing a rationale for collective action facilitated by the international community. Yet, as many public goods, provision of global public goods suffer from collective action failures that undermine international coordination. This paper discusses the obstacles to addresing these global risks effectively, highlighting their implications for the current juncture. It claims that remaining gaps in information, resources, and capacity hamper accumulation and use of knowledge to triger appropriate action, but diverging national interests remain the key impediment to cooperation and effectiveness of global efforts, even when knowledge on the risks and their consequences are well understood. The paper argues that managing global risks requires a cohesive international community that enables its stakeholders to work collectively around common goals by facilitating sharing of knowledge, devoting resources to capacity building, and protecting the vulnerable. When some countries fail to cooperate, the international community can still forge cooperation, including by realigning incentives and demonstrating benefit from incremental steps toward full cooperation.

Chronicles the expanding global effort to confront public health challenges. Since the year 2000, unprecedented resources have been committed to the complex challenge of developing global public health solutions by national governments, multilateral organizations, and civil society groups. This vast global movement is one of the most remarkable political phenomena of twenty-first-century international relations—but is it working? In The Rise of Global Health, Joshua K. Leon argues against the conventional wisdom, which argues that collective action on development issues—including controversial increases in foreign aid—is too inherently inefficient to succeed. Leon shows that public action on a global level can successfully pursue health equality. Often at the behest of grassroots activists, these disparate groups of actors are cooperating more than ever with the aim of improving our human potential through better health. Though operating at cross purposes with unequal trade agreements and other factors within the global economy harming the Global South, we learn something surprising about global health governance—it is evolving in ways more efficient than we think.

Global Responses to Maritime Violence is a full discussion of maritime security short of war that goes beyond the current literature in both scope and perspective. The chapters in this volume examine terrorism, piracy, armed robbery at sea, illegal maritime trafficking, illegal fishing, and other maritime crimes. Contributors uncover both threats and responses as a complex ecosystem that challenges even the strongest national and regional institutions. Managing this system is a "wicked problem" that has no ultimate solution. But the book offers strategic precepts to guide the efforts of any government that seeks to improve its responses to maritime violence. The bottom line is that maritime violence can be managed effectively enough to protect citizens and national economies that depend on the sea. Comprehensive in scope, the volume coheres around the premise that good governance in the maritime domain, though difficult, is worth the considerable resources required.

The first months of the Obama administration have led to expectations, both in the United States and abroad, that in the coming years America will increasingly promote the international rule of law—a position that many believe is both ethically necessary and in the nation’s best interests. With The Perils of Global Legalism, Eric A. Posner explains that such views demonstrate a dangerously naive tendency toward legalism—an idealistic belief that law can be effective even in the absence of legitimate institutions of governance. After tracing the historical roots of the concept, Posner carefully lays out the many illusions—such as universalism, sovereign equality, and the possibility of disinterested judgment by politically unaccountable officials—on which the legalistic view is founded. Drawing on such examples as NATO’s invasion of Serbia, attempts to ban the use of land mines, and the free-trade provisions of the WTO, Posner demonstrates throughout that the weaknesses of international law confound legalist ambitions—and that whatever their professed commitments, all nations stand ready to dispense with international agreements when it suits their short- or long-term interests. Provocative and sure to be controversial, The Perils of Global Legalism will serve as a wake-up call for those who view global legalism as a panacea—and a reminder that international relations in a brutal world allow no room for illusions.

Recent generations have experienced dramatic improvements in the quality of human life across the globe. Wars between states are fought less frequently and are less lethal. Food is more plentiful and more easily accessed. In most parts of the world, birthrates are down and life expectancy up. Significantly fewer people live in extreme poverty, relative to the overall population. Statistics would argue that the human race has never before flourished as it has in this moment. And yet, even with this progress, we face a number of seemingly intractable challenges to the welfare of both states and individuals, including: Governmental instability undermining the lives of citizens, both within and beyond their borders; Persistent and recurring intrastate conflict due to ineffective conflict management strategies; Marginally successful development efforts and growing income inequality, both within and between nations, as a result of uncoordinated and ineffective global development strategies; Internecine conflict in multiethnic societies, manifested by exclusion, discrimination, and ultimately violence, the inevitable consequence of an insufficient focus on managing the inherent tensions in diverse societies; Global climate change with the possibility of catastrophic long-term consequences, following an inability to effectively come to terms with and respond to the impact of human activity on our environment. These challenges require a newly collaborative, intentional, and systematic approach. This book offers a blueprint for how to get there, calling for increased leadership responsibility, clarity of mission, and empowerment of states and individuals. It is designed to transform lofty but often vague agendas into concrete, measurable progress. It believes in the capacity of humanity to rise to the occasion, to come together to address these increasingly critical global problems, and offers one way forward.

Developed nations strive to create the impression that their hearts and pockets bleed for the developing world. Yet, the global North continues to offer unfavorable trade terms to the global South. Truly fair trade would make reciprocal concessions to developing countries while allowing them to better their own positions. However, five hundred years of colonial racism and post-colonial paternalism have undermined trade negotiations. While urging developing countries to participate in trade, the North offers empty deals to "partners" that it regards as unequal. Using a mixed-methods approach, J. P. Singh exposes the actual position beneath the North's image of benevolence and empathy: either join in the type of trade that developed countries offer, or be cast aside as obstreperous and unwilling. Singh reveals how the global North ultimately bars developing nations from flourishing. His findings chart a path forward, showing that developing nations can garner favorable concessions by drawing on unique strengths and through collective advocacy. Sweet Talk offers a provocative rethinking of how far our international relations have come and how far we still have to go.

Now as we stand at the crossroads, the steps taken by national governments, business communities and others involved in the negotiations will determine which path we will take as a world community, to mitigate and to adapt to climate change. As discussed in the book, in the coming years it is more politics than policies that will determine the way forward to climate change negotiations, Kyoto protocol and beyond regime. This book combines philosophical approach to climate change (including a development debate and a discussion on need for equitable approach to climate change negotiations), with scientific facts and its impact on human health. Adaptation is one of the important issues in the book.

Narrative Politics explores two puzzles. The first has long preoccupied social scientists: How do individuals come together to act collectively in their common interest? The second is one that has long been ignored by social scientists: Why is it that those who promote collective action so often turn to stories? Why is it that when activists call for action, candidates solicit votes, organizers seek new members, generals rally their troops, or coaches motivate their players, there is so much story-telling? Frederick W. Mayer argues that answering these questions requires recognizing the power of story to overcome the main obstacles to collective action: to surmount the temptation to free ride, to coordinate group behavior, and to arrive at a common understanding of the collective interest. In this book, Mayer shows that humans are, if nothing else, a story-telling, story-consuming animal. We use stories to make sense of our experience and to imbue it with meaning-our self-narratives define our sense of identity and script our actions. Because we are constituted by narrative, we can be moved by the stories told to us by others. That is why leaders who call a community to action seek to frame their invocations in a story in which tragedy and triumph hang in the balance, in which taking part in the collective action becomes a moral imperative rather than a matter of calculated self-interest. Drawing on insights from neuroscience and behavioral economics, political science and sociology, history and cultural studies, literature and narrative theory, Narrative Politics sheds light on a wide range of political phenomena from social movements to electoral politics to offer lessons for how the power of story fosters collective action.

Collective Action in Europe in the Wake of the Global Financial Crisis

Author: Cristina Flesher Fominaya,Graeme Hayes

Publisher: Routledge

ISBN: 9781138564565

Category:

Page: 160

View: 5607

Following the subprime lending crisis and the financial market crash of 2008-9, governments throughout Europe implemented a series of debt reduction measures collectively known as austerity. Across the continent, citizens and social movements mobilized dramatically against these measures, calling strikes, occupying public squares, and developing new forms of political action. These movements challenged the political and economic elite consensus that there was no alternative to cutting spending, and protecting the financial industry at the expense of the public sector; they also challenged the political systems that gave rise to these measures and assumptions, demanding democratic renewal, and imagining new modes of citizenship and political participation. In order to better understand this wave of protest - its common themes, its local contexts, its ideas and its actions - this collection brings together leading scholars in the field to provide a series of theoretically grounded, empirically rich analyses of Europe's anti-austerity mobilizations. This book was originally published as a special issue of Social Movement Studies.

To improve their well-being, the poor in developing countries have used both collective action through formal and informal groups and property rights to natural resources. Collective Action and Property Rights for Poverty Reduction: Insights from Africa and Asia examines how these two types of institutions, separately and together, influence quality of life and how they can be strengthened to improve the livelihoods of the rural poor. The product of a global research study by the Systemwide Program on Collective Action and Property Rights (CAPRi) of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, this book draws on case studies from East Africa and South and Southeast Asia to investigate how collective action and property rights have contributed to poverty reduction. The book extends the analysis of these institutions beyond their frequently studied role in natural resource management by also examining how they can reduce vulnerability to different types of shocks. Essays in the volume identify opportunities and risks present in the institutions of collective action and property rights. For example, property rights to natural resources can offer a variety of advantages, providing individuals and groups not only with benefits and incomes but also with assets that can counter the negative effects of shocks such as drought, and can make collective action easier. The authors also demonstrate that collective action has the potential to reduce poverty if it includes more vulnerable groups such as women, ethnic minorities, and the very poor. Preventing exclusion of these often-marginalized groups and guaranteeing genuinely inclusive collective action might require special rules and policies. Another danger to the poor is the capture of property rights by elites, which can be the result of privatization and decentralization policies; case studies and analysis identify actions to prevent such elite capture.

A reborn collectivism has begun to challenge the neo-liberal orthodoxies of the last fifteen years. But this new collectivism is very different from the state-centred collectivism of the post-war period. It is outward-looking, pluralistic and internationalist. It stands for strong communities, a diverse civil society, bottom-up development and constitutional checks and balances to prevent the abuse of power. It also stands for federalist power-sharing in the European Union, and for radical reform of the IMF and World Bank. This book sets out an agenda for the new collectivism which will provide the central themes of left and centre-left politics into the next century.

This dissertation, "The Labor Politics of Market Socialism: a Collective Action in a Global Workplace in South China" by Wai-ling, Jenny, Chan, 陳慧玲, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: Abstract of thesis entitled "The Labor Politics of Market Socialism: A Collective Action in a Global Workplace in South China" submitted by CHAN Wai Ling, Jenny for the degree of Master of Philosophy in Sociology at The University of Hong Kong in May 2006 This paper is based on an ethnographic research on labor politics in South China. During the past two decades of rapid market reforms, China has become a "world factory." Some 120 to 200 million mingong, migrant wage-workers of rural household registration, are recomposing the Chinese working class. At the workplace level, how do Chinese migrant workers understand their lived class experiences? How do they realize their shared interests in everyday practices as well as in specific moments of labor struggles? I analyze the emergence and social organization of a collective action in a 3,000-person Hong Kong-invested enterprise in the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone. A massive dismissal of 600 production workers triggered a protest in March 2003. What resources are available for aggrieved migrant workers to use in their struggle? Existing writings on Chinese migrant workers have mostly emphasized the domination of workers by the state and global capitalism. Specifically, even though the central government has introduced protective labor laws, they have seldom been enforced. In situations of protests, labor laws have even been found to set limits on compensation claims and other outcomes. In addition, workers are subjected to tight managerial control not only on the shop floor, but also within their dormitories. Strict restrictions of their bodily movements, not only at work but also at 'home, ' are seen as a major mechanism for enhancing productivity and reducing worker interactions. Finally, the management has been found to encourage the proliferation of localistic loyalty, which can be used to draw social iiboundaries between the workers and reduce their solidarity. In this study, I argue that all three forces can be double-edged swords. While they serve to restrain and control the workers, they can also be used as mechanisms for launching labor resistance. First, the government's legal reforms have opened up new institutional channels for the workers to legitimize their claims. Second, the workers can readily build solidarity based on pre-existing localistic networks and in some cases transcend them. Third, collective factory dormitories provide a place or socio-cultural space for the workers to articulate their aggregate interests. How are the migrant workers organized? Labor laws, localistic networks, the shop floor as well as dormitories of the factory have provided much-needed organizational resources. I also highlight the crucial role of migrant workers as leaders in the dynamic process of labor organizing. Without the help of trade unions, the workers have to rely on themselves to fight for their rights and dignity. In and through intensive struggle, their working-class identity and consciousness are strengthened and heightened. In sum, my research aims at articulating Chinese migrant workers' discontent and specifying the logic of a particular mode of workplace-based collective action. Labor protests will likely increase in frequency and scale as the market reforms deepen and generate new forms of social inequalities in China.

Collective Action is now recognized as central to addressing the water governance challenge of delivering sustainable development and global environmental benefits. This book examines concepts and practices of collective action that have emerged in recent decades globally. Building on a Foucauldian conception of power, it provides an overview of collective action challenges involved in the sustainable management and development of global freshwater resources through case studies from Africa, South and Southeast Asia and Latin America. The case studies link community-based management of water resources with national decision-making landscapes, transboundary water governance, and global policy discussion on sustainable development, justice and water security. Power and politics are placed at the centre of collective action and water governance discourse, while addressing three core questions: how is collective action shaped by existing power structures and relationships at different scales? What are the kinds of tools and approaches that various actors can take and adopt towards more deliberative processes for collective action? And what are the anticipated outcomes for development processes, the environment and the global resource base of achieving collective action across scales?